Fox Memos Showed They Were Not Fair & Balanced During Health Care Debate

December 9, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Just as Captain Renault was shocked to find that there was gambling going on at Rick’s in Casablanca, we are shocked (not) to find that there is organized spinning of the news at Fox. Media Matters obtained leaked email which demonstrates how they choose their words to promote their agenda:

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News’ controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network’s journalists not to use the phrase “public option.”

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox’s reporters should use “government option” and similar phrases — wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats’ reform efforts…

Luntz argued that “if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split,” but that “if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it.” Luntz explained that the program would be “sponsored by the government” and falsely claimed that it would also be “paid for by the government.”

Up until that time, Fox propagandists weren’t uniform in their teminology, but that soon changed:

The next morning, October 27, Sammon sent an email to the staffs of Special Report, Fox News Sunday, and FoxNews.com, as well as to other reporters and producers at the network. The subject line read: “friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the ‘public option.’ ”

Sammon instructed staff to refer on air to “government-run health insurance,” the “government option,” “the public option, which is the government-run plan,” or — when “necessary” — “the so-called public option”

The most serious distortion of facts in Fox’s biased reports were the incorrect claims that this “government option” would be paid for by tax money, as opposed to from premiums paid by those who voluntarily chose the plan.